Beachhead (Pursuit of Cobra)

August 10, 2011 | By More


I’ve actually seen Beachhead turn up in few different places lately. Continuing the trend of masked characters I couldn’t resist picking him up. I debated, though, since at first glance his blister seems a little less full than my normal GI Joe purchases.

Beachhead is an Army Ranger character for the Joes and in general a badass. He’s got his followers, and the Pursuit of Cobra “Urban Combat Specialist” is a great role for him.

Appearance:

Compared to some of the other POC updates, Beachhead really is only update to the more realistic style. I think that is something that always appealed to me about him. He has always been one of the more realistic looking Army soldiers in the line.

Th head on this guy is pretty good. The eyes are maybe a tad too deep, but that just might be some shadows messing with me. The mask has fabric texture all over, with care taken to make seams and directionality.

The one thing I haven’t figure out are his arms. In the package, I thought he had bare forearms. Out of the package they appear to have tan camo on them where the rest of his body is the sweater. While the color breaks up the look, I’m not sure it really makes sense when they are broken up at.

Speaking of camo, it wouldn’t be Beachhead without brown camo pants. This is a nice update and looks like a reasonable facsimile of modern SWAT gear. My only slight issue with the legs is the electronic doodad on his left leg. It has a cable coming out of it that plugs into a small hole in his ankle. I have two small issues. One, it won’t stay plugged in. Two, why would something plug in there?

A cool feat I wanted to mention was there is tread on the bottom of the boots. Not just the edges. Nice little detail.

The figure has the modern skating type gear we are used to seeing on troops these days. Knee pads and shoulder pads. There’s even some forearm armor.

The other key characteristic needed for Beachhead is a combat vest, and this one is loaded for bear. Literally. There are four clips hanging from the bottom of the vest and these are in addition to two on his right leg. This dude doesn’t wan to run out of bullets.

The detail on vest is nice. There is a ton of pouches. most of the front ones get some silver snaps. This vest gives the impression that Beachie likes to be prepared.

In addition to the sculpted details, there’s some neat addons on the vest. The first is a set of binoculars on his left shoulder. I was really hoping they would come off, but alas they don’t. At least not easily. The right shoulder and back both get a working knife sheath.

The last item is a pair of what I assume are tear gas canisters under his right arm. They are shiny and have small warning triangles on them. The bottoms are even painted red for a little added touch.

Fun:

I mentioned above the blister didn’t seemed as packed as a figure I would normally get. However, once I got it open I realized it is pretty much a GI Joe armory. There are 7 different weapons in this package.

There are three different riffles. One has a slightly futuristic look to it, and I’m assuming it is a rail gun mentioned on his brief card bio. The other two are more in the line of modern plausibility.

Next up are two submachine guns. The thing that impressed me about these is they are the same model, which makes sense ammo-wise. The cool part is they are the exact same gun. One has a folded grip, scope and silencer. The other is a plain jane model with the grip down.

Rounding out his personal weapons are a pistol and knife. The pistol is okay, but the handle seems a little out of scale to me. The knife is black, but fits in either of the sheathes on his vest. Beachhead seems like a 2 knife kind of guy, so I really would have like to have seen one for each sheath.

Bechhead comes with a helmet/gas mask combo piece. Unlike the two piece construction seen with the Cobra Shock trooper and PIT Soldier, this one is a single helmet and mask and helmet that slips over his head. The canister for the a gas mask is an oversize thing on one side. Unfortunately, it gets in the way with the sheath on his right shoulder.

Last up are some accessories that I’m not sure an “Urban Combat Specialist” would need, swim fins. They appear to be some sort of high tech fins well beyond any of the discount store ones I had as a kid.  There’s even a bit of blue paint on them for detail. Their pegs even fit into small holes on his vest for storage. They do not however have the duplicate peg holes seen on Torpedo’s fins. Why does he need these? And if he does, doesn’t he need a snorkel or something?

Speaking of storage, that might be the thing that bugs me the most about what is other wise a fine figure. He comes with a ton of weapons, but no where to put them. There’s no holster for the pistol. Other than the knife, it’s pretty much just what he can carry.  A peg or strap on at least one of the guns would have been nice.

Overall:

I have to say Beachhead embodies what I’m liking about the GI Joe Pursuit of Cobra line. The figures are great little highly articulated modern army figures. They’ve really amped up the realism in this line. It’s no wonder these figures are gone almost as soon they hit pegs.

A little more storage and maybe a pack are the only things I would have added here.

Engineernerd Score: 96/100

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Category: Featured, GI Joe, Toy Reviews

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  1. Errex says:

    That’s one cool looking figure, and also one of my favorite characters.